Edinburgh: comedy

Dara O'Briain

Dara O'Briain will never be fashionable. No one will hail him as the future of comedy. There's something back-to-basics about his brand of stand-up, which eschews gimmickry and knob gags and reminds us that the job began as one person telling funny stories to others. But he does it well, and demonstrates a ready wit in handling audience contributions.

O'Briain fashions his set around the fact that he's approaching his 30th birthday. That information is funny in itself: he looks, he admits, a decade older. What adventures, O'Briain asks his crowd, must I get under my belt before my 20s end? It's easy to warm to a comic who takes an evident interest in the suggestions his audience makes. The show's animating principle, that O'Briain wants to look back from his deathbed on a life well lived, is equally admirable.

The premise leads O'Briain into recollections of foreign travel and derring-do, including an entertaining account of his first and only surfing session, and reflections on the idea that the best way to fend off a shark is to punch it on the nose. Relationship-based material is mercifully minimal here, but O'Briain amusingly extrapolates one overseas escapade to conclude that, when dating a prostitute, it's easy to retain the moral high ground. Here is a stand-up whose unassuming but authentic perspectives offer a comfortable refuge from attention-seeking and hype.

About this article

Edinburgh comedy: Dara O'Briain

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 19.00 EDT on Wednesday 22 August 2001.
It was last modified at 19.00 EDT on Thursday 25 April 2002.
It was first published at 19.00 EDT on Thursday 25 April 2002.